Nefertiti 4tet
French upcoming jazz collective with brand new album “Frameless”
Jazz hoboist and Splendor Young Blood Maripepa Contreras has been introducing a wide selection of fascinating bands to the club house. Tonight she invites the French group Nefertiti: a classic jazz quartet at first sight, but in fact very far removed from the traditional “tune – improvised solos – tune” form. Pianist Delphine Deau founded the quartet in 2013 and named it after the composition of Wayne Shorter: inspired by his unusual melodies, she embarked on a search for a similarly unusual form and dramaturgy. Nefertiti only plays the form when it is has to, after an initial joyous frolic and shadow play. After the high amount of tension that is created by this free play, it feels like a paradoxical and highly appealing liberation when the melody and pulse finally appear – even when the lines have the freedom to zigzag, swirl and punctuate with polyrhythm.
Nefertiti's individual players met at the CRR Conservatoire de Paris, and have particularly wide artistic tentacles, venturing into 'soundpainting', dance, theatre, storytelling, film and circus. They won the Euroradio Jazz Competition in 2019 (with drummer Pierre Demange also winning the Prize for best soloist), and were selected for the French Jazz Migration #5, which helps present emerging and highly promising jazz musicians to the world. After the albums Danses Futuristes (2015) and Morse Code (2018), the band has shaped their collective sound – a process that is continually developing through extensive touring. Their third album, Frameless, will be released in June 2022.
Nefertiti 4tet
Delphine Deau - Piano
Camille Maussion - Sax
Pedro Ivo Ferreira - Double bass
Pierre Demange - Drums